This is similar to how LÖVE games work on Android [1], you download the app from the store and then load a .zip file of your game and it runs inside that. You can then make it into its own app and publish it to the store

Languages rarely become popular simply on the merits of their technical features. Ruby languished for a decade, more or less, before people noticed it because of Rails. Lua would be a complete unknown without WoW's programming APIs. Lua is no more a "gaming" language than Ruby is a "web" language.